cm funk

Super Bowl counterprograming was fairly common in the 90's, doesn't seem to be as much of it these days I still remember watching Halftime Heat with a party of 20 or so people. A handful of us were wrestling fans, most people in the room just thought it was totally ridiculous and laughed at all the grunting and noises Foley was making

Well, it's probably because they don't know who he's going to wrestle yet. I think they probably had Brock in mind back when they signed him, but it sounds like plans changed there. Booking Taker for Mania is the easiest thing. He doesn't have to be on TV until a couple months out, and all it takes is somebody calling him out and challenging the streak. The only challenge now is having somebody built up credibly enough to be his opponent now that the streak has reached epic proportions. I think Punk or Sheamus would both fit the bill. Punk with his whole "respect" angle would fit perfectly in the spot and could carry the buildup himself with promos. And Sheamus who has been built up so strong this year would work in a "clash of the titans" sense. It would be his highest profile match to date and could really solidify him as a face of the company even in a loss if he's seen as standing toe to toe and getting the seal of approval from Taker.

Brock/HHH rematch at Mania is so dumb. I can't believe they'd headline the show with two high profile rematches (Cena-Rock being the other rumored one). Then again they did do two Taker-HBK matches and two Taker-HHH matches. I'm most interested to see who Taker's opponent will be. Cena and Brock are the only opponents who aren't a "step down" from HBK/HHH in credibility. I know Ryback was rumored to get the spot, but I don't really see the point of that. If I had to guess right now I'd say either Wade Barrett or Sheamus.

As soon as I saw last week's rating I thought, "Vince will be back on TV" and sure enough.... I liked the angle. It should help prop up their ratings for a week, and it played into the Punk/Cena/Ryback stuff. Punk has been fantastic lately, but I thought tonight may have been his best performance yet. I'm honestly surprised it took this long for Vince to go with a new head writer. With all the various downturns and generally downtrending ratings he managed to survive for a really long time. Sure there's going to be a lot of interesting backstage gossip coming out in the next few weeks

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/qvc-h...-165120932.html

I've never really been a big fan of the MX, Cornette, or the Rock N Roll Express. Blasphemy, I know. I've seen enough of them.....just not that hip to it

Rich peaked way too early. As a kid he was just a random journeyman opening match-midcard guy to me.....at the time I had no idea that he'd been a major superstar in the late 70's/early 80's. I loved him in ECW with the FBI.....but it wasn't until years later that I got to see some of his early GCW era stuff He wasn't the best looking guy and his body didn't look that great as he aged, I think that's a big part of the reason he wasn't as over and pushed later in the 80's. If he'd roided up he probably would have got a nice run in WWF

Landell v. Rhodes is a fun little match. I find Landell's jerkstore Buddy Rogers/Flair gimmick very entertaining, and I forgot how good young Dustin was Dusty puts on a stuttering affect to punchline one of his comments about Dustin......foreshadowing Goldust's gimmick many years later? Did Dustin stutter as a kid?

Buddy Landel vs. Dustin Rhodes?!!? I forgot Dustin was in WCW this early.....him and Dusty were in WWF shortly before this. Crowd boos him, lol

Missy Hyatt: Women's rights advocate her character was really great in 91-92

I think maybe one of the reasons I don't "get" Eaton's character is that he's supposed to be a heel, but he just wrestles smart and proficient and doesn't really exude any heelish characteristics. He attacks Armstrong before the bell.....but it isn't even done in a way that makes you think he's scum for doing it. I'm really not sure if you're supposed to like or dislike the guy. With the Midnight Express everybody just hated Cornette, Eaton was just there, disliked by association......same thing when he was in the Dangerous Alliance.....just a guy who's there which I guess is kind of the point, I just find him dreadfully boring most of the time

I've decided to go back and watch WCW's 1991 PPVS, which I haven't seen in 17-18 years probably Starting with Wrestlewar 91. I enjoyed the opener of JYD/Ricky Morton/Tommy Rich against St. Patrol/Big Cat. It wasn't anything special, formulaic 6 man, Morton and JYD doing their usual paint by numbers stuff, but it was a good way to start off the show with some guys the crowd likes Eaton v. Armstrong was technically very good, but kind of boring IMO. I know this goes against the grain here, but I've always found Eaton kind of dull in general, never lives up to all the hype he gets really. I don't really "get" his character either. Dusty hyping him up for his singles push and saying he's going to win a title was amusing, because IIRC Dusty was the booker at the time and they did put the TV title on him that year. Jason Hervey in the crowd was also amusing. That's as far as I've gotten in the show so far. Random question.....when did Jesse the Body show up that year? This Ross-Dusty commentary team is pretty brutal to listen to

I haven't gone back to watch the last few years of Benoit's career, but he definitely was struggling in some way, and you could see it in his ring work. At the time I thought he was just breaking down physically, wasn't as quick and athletic as he had been, relying on the routine etc. etc.......but looking back it was obviously much more than that, a mental decline like you say....

Sheamus isn't bad at all at the WWE style comedy, but the writing/booking isn't doing him any favors I understand why they book him like they do, playing to kids, selling merch and all that.....but you can do that without insulting half of the audience's intelligence I think

I was half-watching, but I liked the structure of the show with the hype packages etc. for Punk-Sheamus, and how much time the match itself got, with followup promos by both of them. It was like 80% built around that one match, which is good for a 1 hour show IMO. Kind of a throwback feel to it. I like that they took the time to hype up the Orton-Big Show match for next week too. Such a simple thing that they don't often do. I didn't think the Punk/Sheamus match itself was anything special, but it wasn't bad or anything, just felt like they could do a lot better. I may have liked it more if I hadn't read the spoilers. I don't expect the format of the show to keep. I think being on Ion is a bigger deal to them than being on WGN, but I expect it to go the way of Superstars in a few months

Huh?

I know Luke Gallows is "Armbreaker", Mike Knox is one of them, and Wes Brisco is in the group (and has also been seen un-masked and not part of the group backstage) D-Lo Brown does the Ole Anderson "Black Scorpion" voice The initial thought of most was that it was a way to bring Jeff Jarrett back. Now people seem to think the leader will be either Bully Ray or Samoa Joe. I still think it's going to be Jarrett. I really can't think of any "great" moments in the angle. The Aries-Armbreaker fight at the last PPV was ok.

Thanks for that, downloading it right now! Judging by the size of the card everything must be heavily clipped

Odelay!

Just to be clear, I'm not defending Russo's booking or his personality and I don't want to be misconstrued like that. Russo's WCW turned me off that product completely within months, as did his booking in TNA.......I hate Russo booked/written wrestling. But I don't think it's outlandish at all to say that in a confined, structured environment he can bring some things to the table. His biggest problem seems to be overinflated ego. He thinks he's a lot smarter and more talented than he actually is, and since he "got the pen" he refuses to take a step backwards from that. As he says in the shoot, his least favorite thing about working in wrestling is being micro-managed, and he refuses to watch any wrestling that he hasn't written. That sort of mentality helped him get where he got, and also led to where he got being complete shit most of the time.

This is wrong. What Russo lacks is understanding of the basic fundamentals of narrative. It's not because he isn't especially a wrestling fan, he just has no grasp of how stories on the whole are supposed to function or why. He is a man who has never thought about, say, a movie or a book in a structural sense because he thinks the spectacle is the draw and that spectacle is something that occurs naturally when you shake up the bag of marbles often enough -- and therefore something he is capable of creating (as opposed to the reality that he was a mere lucky witness when Rock, Austin, and Foley got their moment to shine.) No, I think you missed my point. He has some good ideas, he has some good ideas about writing episodic TV and doing things to make the viewer want to come back the next week, he demonstrated on the shoot the right mindset of scripting more or less depending on the talent, playing to a talent's strengths etc. (and lots of talent in WWF, WCW and TNA liked working with him), he even decried "video game style" wrestling (which by booking 4 minute matches he's been part of the problem for a long time, but he isn't the most self aware guy....). He also has some mind-fuckingly awful ideas and theories that manage to cancel out whatever good ones he has. He understands the fundamentals of narrative, I just think he thinks "it's all been done before, it's boring, I'm hip and modern, I can do it better!" It's like he thinks he's the Quentin Tarantino of pro-wrestling or something.......and he's just not that introspective or talented

When did WWF get on UK tv? I thought it wasn't until the late 80's or so, but Dave was talking about it on Observer Radio like it coincided with Daddy no longer being a draw and the local promotions falling off, which I thought happened much earlier than that.

I agree with all of this. It was an interesting look at how his mind works, but ultimately just reinforces the long held belief that he needs to be micro-managed and edited.

Just watched that the other day, and I was pleasantly surprised. Definitely wasn't perfect, and the idea that Vince would trust Bischoff to rid him of the nWo and not turn to his heavy hitters Austin, Rock, HHH, Angle etc. flies in the face of "reality" and "the character" which were the two big points Russo was harping on, but overall, with tweaking, it would have been a hundred times better than what we got. Of course any of us could book the angle better than it was, but Russo had some good ideas, especially leaving WCW alone on the last Nitro, and starting the invasion with the mirror image of Hall coming through the crowd. The whole thing was Russo to a T though, some good ideas, good ideas of how to work with talent, how to write episodic TV, but lacking simple understanding in wrestling basics. He drove that home when asked how he handles the WCW belts, and responds "THE BELTS DON'T MATTER!" And he kept talking about "reality" and "shooting" ad nauseum. He makes a big production of talking about how wrestling fans all know what's going to happen if you book with "traditional" wrestling "cliches"....not understanding that his style of booking is a cliche in itself, and it doesn't work. Also, I can understand Russo not having more than a cursory grasp of the time period and the talent available since he claims he didn't watch any of it when it happened, but the KC host was woefully underprepared and misinformed on basic things. He kept saying 2000 when the Invasion happened in 2001. He didn't know when the purchase happened. He didn't know it was right before WM and WWE had all their booking through Mania in place already. He skips right to freakin SummerSlam for the first big PPV angle, when he's got it starting the week after the last Nitro. Simple things that really hurt both of their credibility. It was an enjoyable, but flawed, watch though, better than I expected.

Dave trolling his own board